New Delhi, March 25 -- My friend is a professor of Economics in the country's leading business school. He loves his job, yet choosing his profession was not easy. He studied science and mathematics in high school and prepared for the IIT exams, as did many of his classmates. Friends and family coerced him into studying engineering.

It was a safe career choice, they opined, with salaries 20% higher than the market, and jobs almost guaranteed. My friend was miserable because his interests lay in advancing our market's competitiveness through monetary policy rather than testing a capacitor's role in maintaining voltage.

My friend did listen to his heart in the end, after five wasted years of pursuing a stream that satisfied others' desires...